Moar dots... Ok back to being serious, rules are guidelines for stories in roleplaying games. The Dr. Manhatten vs Ozymandias was a good way of illustrating that brains and brawn (Dr.M) doesn't always outsmart a sneaky weasel, that the story is driven forward not by the similarities between the characters, but by their differences. When your dealing with a system that has rules in it like a roleplaying game then everyone is to some extent the same, numbers, dots or what ever on a piece of paper and then some dice to add some randomness. Give every player the same character stats wise, sit them down and tell them, here are your stats, don't show them to the others and then tell them to play their characters as they see fit, backgrounds ect are up to them completely and see how different they will behave, personality, their stats has nothing to do with that.

Locque said:

Thanks Loque :¬D

I didn't go far and the Astropaths kept me well appraised.

As to agreeing with me? I should hope not! How dull would that be?!

Reasoned, mature debate is the life-blood of any forum...the forests are deep here at FFG though...lots of trolls lurking about unfortunately. Ah well.

As to 'balance', well, i said its a red herring NOT 'irrelevant' or 'unimportant'.

While i'm a ROLEPLAYER more than a gamer, the gamist elements are important. 'Balance' in mechanics is something to consider otherwise you end up in Rifts territory.

My assertion however is that 'balance' is a diversion, a 'red herring' away from the core element missing from many GAMES - roleplaying .

Lets see...here's a potential fantasy RPG 'party' (using general AD&D (pre-d20 nightmare referencing).

Level 20 human wizard

Level 15 Elven archer

Level 10 Human ranger

Level 8 Human fighter

Level 12 Dwarf fighter

Level 2 Halfling fighter

Level 3 Halfling thief

Level 2 Halfling thief

Level 1 Halfling paladin

GAMER: Hugely unbalanced party...it'll be 'broken', 'rubbish'...how can a GM 'scale a combat encounter to challenge the wizard without butchering the halflings'?

ROLEPLAYER: Epic story potential about a group of friends (each playing a role ) on a quest to destroy a ring.

Port over this basic concept (from Lord of the Rings for those few who didn't spot it immediately) which is at the heart and at the beginning of all roleplaying games into Dark Heresy and yes, a 'Dr Manhatten' Rank 16 psyker can quite readily ROLEPLAY alongside a Rank 1 Adept...unless all you're doing is some sort of empty skirmish game where the only aspects of the GAME you're interested in is the '+850 bonus to kill everything within 16 miles'.

Now its very easy to see the opinions i'm expressing as an attack on GAMERS.

It isn't.

Those who are into roleplaying GAMES - no worries. Great stuff!

I just happen to prefer ROLEPLAYING games. If i want the former, i'll play a tabletop skirmish game like Legends of the Old West...

It just seems wierd to me that so much griping on these forums is about how 'broken' the DH/RT game is, forgetting that its the roleplaying thats really important.

"It just seems wierd to me that so much griping on these forums is about how 'broken' the DH/RT game is, forgetting that its the roleplaying thats really important. "

Pointing out gaping and obvious flaws in the balance of the DH/RT systems, and defending the validity of those observations against apologist naysayer sophistry != to forgetting importance of roleplay.

Focusing your energy on misguided attempts to homogenize rp characters into MMO like avatars of equal but different value is futile if the designers do not agree with you. I prefer my tabletop games to be rich rather than strictly balanced. I imagine there are others who feel as I do, as it is obvious there are others who feel as you.

But, I never remember one player whining over power levels in a game prior to the MMO "age" and DnD 4.0 and on. In the past we were too busy focusing on our characters to whine over who's was most overpowered.

DnD 1st Edition, wowsa unbalanced.

DnD 2nd Edition, ouch the imbalance continues yet we still play for fun.

Vampire the Masquerade, woefully unbalanced and yet play it we do, even with groups of mismatched power levels.

Werewolf the Apocalypse, can we say Mokole, don't want to get silly, just pick the right gifts and watch your pack become obsolete. Yet you guessed it, we played it and had a blast.

Mage the Ascension, sphere balance was a jest at best. Played it and loved it.

Changeling the Dreaming, anyone who played this for balance wasn't playing the same game we were. We did play alot of this one.

Shadowrun, are you kidding me decker versus Street Sam or Corp/Wage Mage/Shaman...yet still a favourite of mine.

Star Wars D6, Jedi need I say more. Yet I own every supp for it and ONLY run Star Wars in this system. Eschewing the Saga system.

Rifts....loved it for what it was, even when I had groups varying between juicers and rogue scholars. And still love where the world is going. Yes each book is more powerful than the last, but the world is an evolving story not a static one, so as new things happen new things arise.

Hero Games, the balance in this game only existed on a pt balance scale, powers were woefully mismatched to their costs in many a version, yet I own and love every version.

DnD 3.0 and 3.5 I felt these were actually less balanced than previous DnDs, the right combination of prestige classes, meant OP characters. Despite balancing attempts. I own maybe a dozen 3.5 books. As balance became a driving force in their ideas, even if failed in application, it made me less interested in the game.

Star Wars Saga System, the first real attempt at balance by WoTC. Jedi lvl 20 = Smuggler lvl 20 or so they say. And to me it gutted Star Wars of a unique property in the name of balance. Also note this is baby 4.0, do not own the core book, played 2 sessions, where my GM repeatedly told me that the Jedi in our group would never be more OP than my smuggler. That really ruined it for me. Wasn't he the Jedi?

Were the Forsaken, Vampire the Requiem, Mage the Awakening, Changeling the Lost and the new WoD Line...balance starts to show itself as a driving design decision at White Wolf. These games are actually great in general, though I still find no one crying over the balance of power in them. However this is the most "balance" driven tabletop I have collected. Owning all the books released to date for the lines I enjoy. Mage, and Changeling.

DnD 4.0 aka WoW the Tabletop DnD version...Balance Balance Balance, he is stronger then me, this is op, whine whine whine...don't play it. Won't touch it, did not like WoW anyways.

DH/RT/and likely DW, a return to the roots of RPGs. Balance is not entirely there, but the setting is rich, varied and enjoyable to exist in. Have bought every book thus far, Own 2 CEs of RT, Buying two CEs of DW, willing to pay $750+ for a copy of the DH CE, have 3 IHs, and 1 of everything else. Love it more than I have loved an RPG line in a long time. And I am no Warhammer adherant. I played RT in the days of my youth, but not enough to consider it a major RPG in my life. Played the TT with my Boyfriend in High School, played Dark Eldar of course, girl and elves...then I found these games, and with all their little quirks and flaws fell in love with them. I now have a 4k pt CSM Army being painted and am working on my Witchhunters Army. And you know what drew me to the game setting? It sure was not the balance. It was the rich and vibrant world.

So Psykers are deity like. You do realize being the best of the best Psykers is what made our God Emperor who he is to us today in the setting right?

Want to tone down PC Psykers? Then do so. But please realize just because some of us do not feel the need to atack the balance of the game does not mean we do not see the imbalances. We, no I just feel, and can speak for no one save myself, that baance is secondary to creating a true to the lore world. Not everything in this world is equal. Not everyone is created equal, and I am fine with it that way, Same as I have been since I first picked up my DnD boxed sets.

Alexis

*smiles*

Cailieg said:

Here here. I fully agree with this, other than that nWoD isn't strictly balanced, but made so each of the different races (such as Vampires, Werewolves, etc, are fully compatible in the same system out of the box, unlike oWoD).

Otherwise, top notch. This is how I see it too, and the same with Luddite's arguments. Balance might not be there, but who needs it to tell a good story, really? It's not as though all the movies mentioned earlier in this thread (Watchmen, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc) had all the characters balanced in power, and they're classics.

Who's trying to homogenize RP characters (btw balance and novelty are not mutually exclusive properties)? Who is arguing that mechanics are not secondary to lore and roleplaying? Certainly not me, or any of the others who defend perfectly valid observations concerning glaring mechanical imbalance from apologist nonsense. You're more than welcome to utilize blatantly imbalanced systems; we're not stopping you, nor are we telling you otherwise. What we are saying is that balance is an important component of any given framework or system, not the alpha or the omega, but important as Luddite has stated and illustrated, and absolutely one of several elements that define its overall quality. What we object to are those who try to counter our well-researched and demonstrated claims with silly, unfounded assertions or denials, the (incorrect) idea that the onus is entirely on the GM and not FFG to clean up the mechanical mess, and/or mischaracterize us as being interested in only 'rollplay'. We play DH because we like the system and setting, and (unbelievably I know), enjoy roleplaying, but at the same time we are wary and cognizant of its mechanical flaws, and feel that they detract from the experience. You may not, and that's fine; we're not out to change minds so much as we're out to raise awareness, and hopefully get FFG moving to improve their product in the process of doing so.

Cailieg said:

In regards to that statement, you can definitely speak for me. Not the words I would have chosen, but then again I chose terrible and more then likely misspelled words, but that would definitely be my sentiments

Luddite mentioned that DH was a trip down nostalgia lane and that's how I pretty much felt when I first opened it. "Holy Crap, it's 1988!" was the first thing to come to mind and it's old-school feel as well as, in an odd way, all the quarks that come along with that is one of the things that endured me to the system. Of course, like the poster quoted here, I too enjoyed a bit of Rifts and found no problems with the incredibly obvious power gaps in the book. I ran that game from when it first hit the shelves and for several years after, all throughout my High School years and the difference in character power never even occurred to us as being a problem. At one time the group consisted of a Vagabond with a Rune Weapon bound to him, a Sphinx Shifter, a T-Man, an elven Wilderness Scout, a Bio-Borg, a Mindmelter who was the son of a goddess, a mutant rat who was a City Rat, a 12 year old girl who was a Vagabond, a Vampire Master (I think), and an Android made by ARCHIE, and all characters were of wildly varying levels. None of us worried about niches and who was doing "my job" better then me. We made what ever characters we could dream up, I wove a bizarre story around them, and we all had endless nights of fun.

Hell, even in my DH game, I've had cells comprised of a 7th rank scum gunslinger, a 5 rank adept, a 2nd rank arbitrator, and a 1st rank scum even though common concerns of balance would seem to dictate that there shouldn't be a 1st rank general scum with a 7th rank gunslinger. It was still a good set of games and the lower ranked characters never once felt useless -in fact the adept and gunslinger would have had to burn a Fate Point each if it hadn't been for the 1st rank scum saving their bacon at one pivotal point. Even without that, he still had stuff to do (he was their guide in the underhive after-all) and be engaged by as did everyone because it was their story. In my opinion, issues of power gaps between the various careers in ascension just doesn't seem all that important nor dose the amount of damage anything can do. What's important is that the story is about those characters, whom ever they are. As long as it's about them, then concerns of balance are really a non-issue as they'll all still have a part to play.
In the Rifts game I mentioned above, the 12 year old Vagabond was, numerically and conceptually speaking, the most useless character ever created. She was real good at screaming when they were supposed to be quiet, running a lot, and being traumatized. Yet her player still had a blast in the game as did everyone else when she played. Some of the most memorable (the only ones I really remember now to be honest) came when she played that character. There's just a hell of a lot more that goes into a game session then just numbers -in my experience, they are the least important things to a good character and a good session.

And a bit off topic, Luddite, you mentioned few systems of skill degradation That reminded me of a game my mind keeps going back to; Spirit of the Century. In it, they have done away with any thought or pretence of a linear character progression. The characters you make are characters at the top of their game, the best they'll ever be, the glory years so-to-speak. You don't gain experience points and you don't arbitrarily just gain numbers and get better at things. Character growth in that game is a lot closer to what I consider character growth to be (as opposed to character growth equating to being better at stuff). All tat a character can do is defined by Traits which are ranked in a pyramid from one Supper Great Trait to a whole bunch of mediocre Traits. After each session, the player can switch the position of any two Traits on adjacent power tiers on the pyramid, thus showing a change in focus of the character as they get better at one thing but worse at another in response to changes in their life and adventures. I really liked that system and the idea but, true to your prediction, the gamer in my group was less ten pleased wit it. He dose so love his numbers and likes for them to go up which I can live with -it works for DH after all. I just have to find a way to convince him that skills, talents, and a lot of numbers on a character sheet dose not equal a character, but I'm starting to think that trying to convince him of such is akin to discussing the Cubist movement and it's validity with a brick-wall.

Cailieg said:

Sorry to drift off topic but on the subject of Jedi in Saga then WOTC failed. Jedi are still more powerful than the other classes, not drastically so but enough to be noticeable. Until they errata'd it a Jedi with enough skill points in Force Use had a 'I win button' with the Move Object power. Like D&D Paladin of old how did you traditionally try and counter this, via roleplaying. Yes you might be a Jedi and therefore a God compared to your fellow party members, but you live and act by a very strict code. To a lesser extent the same principles can be applied to a Psyker in Dark Heresy. Look at the powerful psyker who is seconded to Ravenor's throne agent cadre, he creates merry hell when he casually invokes his not inconsiderable power during an undercover operation and Ravenor has to remind him that if he ever puts his agents in danger again then he would fry his brain.

Lasers,

Though I appreciate your intellectual mannerisms in speaking I do not like your tone. Really, since Ascension released all I have seen from you is whine after whine about balance, psykers or "broken mechanics". And nothing anyone says can ever stop the cycle, but there is one thing that can.

I am forced to add you to those who's posts I ignore. At least until I see if there is not a hidden ignore functionality to the board. That way your posts will cease, in any way, to further impede the enjoyment I derive from my time on these forums. May you find only the most enjoyable of gaming experiences. And may your qualms with the game system not detract too much from your enjoyment of the rich and vibrant world we both enjoy.

Alexis

*smiles*

I don't care; it is literally no loss or of any consequence to me, and it requires no public announcement. If it means in turn that I will not have to listen to your ignorant responses, perhaps it is all for the better; you mistake observance and demonstration for base whining and throw libelous accusations at people who clearly do not deserve them. Good riddance.

I just wanted to say THANKS! for the posts and helping put my thoughts on current role playing into a better perspective than I could muster the other night. I really think there has been a shift in gaming from "role playing" to "gaming" and the difference has been highlighted here. The forums here have been far to similar to the old EQ/WoW/WotC forums that I barely bother to come here to look; it was great to find people think or feel the same way I do about RPGs.

Luddite: Thanks for the perfect example of an "unbalanced" party. Tolkien's Fellowship is probably the archtype for nearly all party-adventuring games we have played.

Cailieg: I agree with your list (although we played Wraith instead of Changling) and the assessment that WotC Star Wars Saga was the first "balanced" class system that I can distinctly remember. Probably why we voted to ignore it and played nearly 6 years in the Revised system... until there was Dark Heresy!

Lastly, I want to say THANKS! to Ross (pre-reg'ed for GenCon, so hope to see you there again!) and all of the other writers, editors, playtesters, etc. for picking up and running with the dream that BI created (and GW tried to kill to restructure finances a moment after release). Each book that comes out means a few nights of only a couple hours of sleep before work and months of looking forward to the next book.

-Cynr

Personally, if someone is trying to make a new version of Ravnor, or Eisenhorn, or even Amberley (Cain Archives, anyone?), Ascension is perfect. It still comes down to choosing the traits right, not for balance or fighting or any of that, but for the character concept. In our game, my gunslinging (not the alternate rank, mind you) Assassin isn't even NEAR the best shot in the group, but when it comes to it, he's the most all around killer. Is he the best talker? Hell no, that's what our party girl Cleric is for. Is he the tech or knowledge monkey? Hell no, we have a Tech Priest and an Adept for that. He can do certain things in those areas, but he's by far not that. He has his flare, but it's not in just killing, it's who he is! It's the fact that if he can, he'd prefer to fly at the enemy with pistols or chain knives, but he'll just as gladly pop a man's head like a balloon from 500 meters with his Nomad. He'll also gladly dodge the majority of a really good auto burst, thanks to his 60 ag. But that's what he does! That's what he is! He's been trained since he could hold a gun and a work a forge how to kill and how to make guns, and it shows in his sheet with his number of "I kill you with this bullet" stuff and the fact that my GM allowed me to Elite advance Armourer.

I think my point is that some people worry TOO MUCH about the mechanics. I mean, if it's really bad enough that it's interrupting your game play and ruining your time, then sure, toss it out the window, never look at the book again. But if you are just looking for all the little flaws just to point them out, and such other things instead of enjoying your game, well that's your own fault. If Ascension really burns you that much, just don't use it. If it will spoil your game play because the Psyker can do horrible things, and at full power even more possibly be eaten by the warp, then guess what? It's not the extra book for you. I personally can't wait to see our Psyker at that level of power....if she can survive that long. I can't wait to see our Adept read all sorts of corrupt books and not take hits for it. I can't wait to see what the party girl cleric can do with REAL power. I'm not even concerned with what my Vindicare can do any more, cause it interests me what the OTHERS can do with the roleplay chances from this book.

Cynr you are most welcome, your posts in this thread have been most enjoyable to read, and I too am glad to have found another person who sees things the way I do, or at least in a very similar fashion.

Games are to each of us something dear, or so I would assume considering we are on an RPG forum. And it is nice to speak with both those who's dissenting viewpoints are maintained civilly in most cases and similar minded people whom you can share a common thread of perspective with.

As always good gaming and may the Emperor guide you.

Alexis

*smiles*

Cynr said:

I don't buy it. I've been seeing the same nonsense about 'roleplayers' vs 'rollplayers' for two decades now, it's nothing new, especially the old 'balance is/isn't important' debate. It isn't the result of any recent shift in gaming.

As for my stance on the issue - you're wrong. Balance in a game can be very important simply because a lack of balance is essentially handicapping some players due to bad game design. Sure, you can run a campaign that way - but the game should make it clear from the beginning that this is the case so that all the players know what to expect.

Does Ascension have a sidebar that points out that any other combat characters will be completely superfluous if there's a Vindicaire in the group? That the rest of the party can stand back and watch as the psyker takes down the Lord of Change? Does it point out which careers may be fun from a fluff point of view, but won't really be able to contribute meaningfully to the game unless the GM takes pity on you? This isn't 'gamist' players whining about being nerfed, it's other roleplayers complaining that their characters don't get to contribute to the game as much. You may have an awesome Desperado character with a great history, tons of chutzpa and a bad-ass attitude, but if his contribution to the game is 0 then you might as well throw his character sheet in the bin and stat up another assassin.

Lasers said:

"Yea, I'm going to go ahead an announce to the public I think you're a tad bit of a such and such and I will ignore your post also. Which, by the way, you've again managed to prove someones point by posting, and its only libel if it isn't true, and the burden of proving it untrue is on you. Good day to you sir. And again, I agree with OP balance is fine when you really start ROLEplaying instead of ROLLplaying."

Sorry, what point of hers am I proving, or are you just pulling stuff out of your arst again in a clumsy attempt to make it seem as if I've somehow one-upped myself?

Also, Cailieg's idiot assertion that I and people like me are rule obsessed 'rollplayers', who want to make everything homogeneous (and that's one of many) is about as untrue as it gets, completely offensive, and is absolutely uncalled for. Contrary to what you may believe, there is a pretty sizable discrepancy between demonstrating broken mechanics, holding the opinion that balance is important, and being utterly smitten with it to the point that everything else takes a backseat. By and large, the far latter is most definitely untrue for most of us, and there is little to nothing in the content of our posts that materially shows otherwise. I guess she felt it was more expedient to demonize and lay down some cheap slander instead of addressing those she disagrees with in an appropriate and even-handed manner.

For all this theorising, I think I'll actually lay down a concrete example of an actual character from one of my actual players in an actual group of mine.

Plagueface the guardsman has been the luckiest son of a grox I've seen. He's one-shotted daemonhosts, killed people with his own dismembered arm shooting a lasgun, and other crazy hijinks. Come Ascension, Stormtrooper is probably going to seem like a logical choice to him.

What am I going to do when, every combat, our telepath psyker is going to upstage him at every turn? I've already seem times when his other character (Plagueface is taking a very long downtime), a slightly-mutated arbitrator, was rendered useless or incapacitated far earlier in a session than anyone else, and the boredom showed through easily. This guy has near nirvana-level of patience and commitment to the game and to our group, and he was looking bored.

Don't call us rollplayers; he's the sort of guy who took a cool concept like a mutated cast-off arbitrator who was a mutant, and since RH handbook wasn't out yet gladly opted to take a mutation right off the bat with no tangible benefits. If that sort of guy is bored in a session then it's a serious issue indeed. Our psyker player willingly went along with a story that involved self-lobotomising himself with a boltpistol and being in league with a daemon.

So what do I do come ascension, when his guardsman will be really underpowered provided he takes stormtrooper? If I go forth with it and he spends all session twiddling his thumbs while at least one character outperforms him in every role he's expected to do, he's going to feel it. I'll feel it too, **** it. If I gimp the psyker at every opportunity, that's not going to solve the issue for more than a session at best.

Fuelling a campaign on nothing but Torpor and Culexis assassins doesn't make a good, cinematic campaign, does it? It smacks of railroading and improbability, that's what it does. And now the psyker is underpowered and outclassed at every turn. And he's feeling it. God-Emperor knows how I'll keep this up for more than a few campaigns.

I've said it before, GMs. This is something I've come to learn myself in my brief roleplaying time. Rules and game mechanics aren't the be-all-end-all. But don't disregard them and the impact they have, because they're the building blocks you and your players use for their stories.

Personally as a DH player looking forward to progressing his Feral Worlder Guardsman the obvious option of Stormtrooper looks pretty anaemic compared to some of the other big options there.

Erik of Suel was always the pinch hitting tank of the group, not as awesome a close combat monster as Amaranth the Assasain or as dangerous at range as Sammuel the Assasain but close to both. Come Ascension though, it really looks like he will lag behind very badly, to the point that the best thing he could do is go Inquisitor and pick up some psychic powers because he gets very little from Stormtrooper. It annoys me how defensively bad the Stormtrooper is compared to the Vindicaire or the Magos, I could accept having less punch compared to the Vindicaire, but the Vindicaire will also be much tougher than my character in the unlikely event of an attack getting past his 21 dodges?

Gah its just frustrating is all.

Hidaowin said:

Assuming all relevant traits being purchased, Erik taking the Stormtrooper path to Stormtrooper and Sammuel taking Vindicaire to Vindicaire, Erik will have a Toughness of 72 and an Agility of 57, Sammuel will have a Toughness of 78 and an Agility of 73,

This leaves their defensive stats at

Erik TB: 7 Dodges: 2 (77%)

Sammuel TB: 14 Dodges : 21 (93%)

If they choose to wear the same armour Sammuel is far superior, if Eric chooses Stormtrooper Carapace and Sammuel a stealth suit.

Erik TB+A: 14 Dodges: 2 (77%)

Sammuel TB+A: 17 Dodges: 21 (103%)

Sammuels armour value is much harder to crack given the abundance of AP 6 or greater weapons.

Eric will have more wounds, but wounds are a poor second to vastly superior dodging and armour.

Hellguns are a joke of a weapon in any case, if you use anything now you use a Stormbolter, but hell the Vindicaire can use that too.

The Stormtrooper package is also terrible +3 WS and +3BS for -10 Fel, leaving me at Fellowship 18 putting half the influence talents out of reach and making the others require large amounts of Fellowship advances.

The Hobo Hunter said:

Indeed the game mechanics are the 'building blocks'. As i said, unless you're playing Amber, the 'crunch' needs to work properly.

However, why does 'working properly' need to equate to 'balanced'?

My Lord of the Rings analogy still stands i think.

If a GM has constructed an interesting and varied sotry arc, with well-designed scenarios that give options to all the PCs and a chance for each player to shine through their characters in advancing the story, what does it matter that one is a level 16 psyker, and the other a level 5 adept?

Unless of course every encounter is simply a combat or adversarial encounter where kill-power is the only mechanical contribution that matters.

A Vindicare assassin is by definition a sociopath. So he'll seriously flounder at a formal ball where the PCs have to try and identify the subtle alliances between the various nobility present.

Same with that level 16 psyker - he'll probably not even be allowed in (sanctioned psykers being in effect 'Imperial property' considered so dangerous that they certainly won't be allowed in the presence of the upper echelons of Imperial society - akin to a slave in Rome not being allowed into the senate)...

Now then, that level 5 adept, a well respected member of the Administratum will likely get in and as a member of a trusted Imperial institution, find the nobles quite amenable...

All of this expressed through ROLEPLAYING without recourse to GAME MECHANICS...

Anyway, the battlelines on this are drawn (over battlelines drawn in the sand over the past 30 years, as pointed out earlier).

So really, those who complain that things aren't 'balanced' and therefore ruin the GAME, or even, amazingly, the ROLEPLAYING; what do you expect the complaining to achieve?

DH/RT is published (with an inadequate BRP-derived core mechanic in my opinion), so that isn't going to change.

Ascension is published. It isn't going to change. Its rules are optional (as indeed are all the RPG rules ever published).

And in any case, all the character structures and rules developed in DH/RT can be readily short-curcuited by 'elite advances', giving every character access to every skill, talanet, advenace, etc. with GM approval.

So where's the problem???

Because I'm comparing two combat focus'ed characters, two characters whose purpose is to fight, one of which is now far inferior to the other. I'm mentioning it in the hope that future supplements achieve a little more balance when handing out the cool stuff or maybe even some errata. I'm also no fan of trying to fix poor mechanics with roleplaying, its a bad idea which just results in advesarial interactions in the playgroup.

Hidaowin said:

Care to elaborate?

Please refrain from making personal attacks against other posters.

Review the forum posting guidelines and keep things civil.

"Unless of course every encounter is simply a combat or adversarial encounter where kill-power is the only mechanical contribution that matters."

Except Psykers can literally do almost anything, and fill almost any niche with their powers if properly built.

"A Vindicare assassin is by definition a sociopath. So he'll seriously flounder at a formal ball where the PCs have to try and identify the subtle alliances between the various nobility present."

Granted. The Vindicare is almost singlemindedly focused on killing in contrast to the Psyker. He can also do stealth and infiltration quite well, but beyond that he's not particularly flexible, and that's a definite Achilles heel of the career.

"Same with that level 16 psyker - he'll probably not even be allowed in (sanctioned psykers being in effect 'Imperial property' considered so dangerous that they certainly won't be allowed in the presence of the upper echelons of Imperial society - akin to a slave in Rome not being allowed into the senate)..."

A well respected Primaris, or Inquisitor Psyker? Not likely. At all.

"Now then, that level 5 adept, a well respected member of the Administratum will likely get in and as a member of a trusted Imperial institution, find the nobles quite amenable..."

Again, the level 16 Psyker can probably do it better.

"All of this expressed through ROLEPLAYING without recourse to GAME MECHANICS..."

Requiring the GM to do contortionist acts in order to compensate for huge rifts in game balance is not good design, and this is precisely what he must do.

"So really, those who complain that things aren't 'balanced' and therefore ruin the GAME, or even, amazingly, the ROLEPLAYING; what do you expect the complaining to achieve?"

An errata that drags some of the excess down to a semblance of sanity? Also, no one says that the balance issues outright 'ruin the game' but they do diminish it.

"DH/RT is published (with an inadequate BRP-derived core mechanic in my opinion), so that isn't going to change."

What's precluding another errata?

"Ascension is published. It isn't going to change. Its rules are optional (as indeed are all the RPG rules ever published)."

Sure its rules are optional, all rules are optional, but you judge a system chiefly by its RAW (i.e. the quality of its mechanics and guidelines, which is why you use it in the first place!), and in substantial part by the balance of that RAW. The balance is in this case found very much wanting.

"And in any case, all the character structures and rules developed in DH/RT can be readily short-curcuited by 'elite advances', giving every character access to every skill, talanet, advenace, etc. with GM approval."

Yes, everything is possible with the GM anyways, but a good system shouldn't have to rely extensively on GM Ad Hoc, either via contortionist manipulations of the story, or extensive mechanical rebalancing.